Africans March in Bastille Day Parade For The First Time

Africans marching in Paris

*On this date in 2010, Black African soldiers from countries in France's former colonial empire marched in the annual Bastille Day military parade in Paris.

Planes flew over the capital, trailing red, white, and blue smoke. Parachuting soldiers dropped onto the Champs-Élysées bearing African flags. Soldiers from 13 African countries celebrating five decades of independence marched down the Champs-Élysées Avenue ahead of French troops. African leaders watched from the stands. President Nicolas Sarkozy rode down the avenue in an open military vehicle. His wife, singer Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, watched from the stands and later signed autographs. A downpour drenched troops and the crowd during part of the parade.

A unit of female soldiers from Benin opened the Bastille Day military parade. Other countries invited were Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Gabon, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Chad, and Togo. Ivory Coast, which has tense relations with France, declined to send troops, but its defense minister attended. The holiday marked July 14, 1789, when angry crowds stormed the Bastille prison in Paris, which helped spark the French Revolution.

The invitation of African leaders forced Sarkozy to defend himself from critics. A host of associations protested about alleged human rights violations by some of the African leaders and said Sarkozy was glorifying the "Francafrique," the French nickname for what many see as cronyism between France and its former African colonies. During a lunch with African leaders the day before, Sarkozy insisted the invitation was not an "expression of colonial nostalgia, or a French temptation to take over your independence celebrations."

Sarkozy said he wanted to celebrate historic bonds and "build the future together."  He also said the government would submit a draft law to ensure that veterans from France's former colonies are entitled to the exact sums in pension payments as their French counterparts, a long-standing source of tension.